I do agree with all of you who are speaking on behalf of cooperating with nature and protecting predators. We should work with nature and not against it. Please note that although I now have the ability to kill a "nuisance" predator, I have not had to do so and hope I never do. After that raccoon reached in and grabbed one of our pullets through the field fencing around our run and tried to pull it through, beheading it, we reinforced that fence with a double layer of chicken wire and have had no subsequent losses. (Hwc would have been cost-prohibitive; it's a very large run.) Destroying a raccoon that has developed a taste for chicken seems like a sensible response to me. Preventing them from doing so is even better. As they say in national parks, "A fed bear is a dead bear."
Rather than eliminating bears and cougars, perhaps we would do well to respect their space and run and jog in the city rather than through mountains and forests they are known to inhabit. Just my opinion. Again, once a large predator like that develops a taste for human flesh, there's no way to rehabilitate it. It had to be destroyed. That's why I said I would shoot a predator that got one of my chickens. If I relocated it, it would just become someone else's problem, only now it would be trap-wise as well.
Rather than eliminating bears and cougars, perhaps we would do well to respect their space and run and jog in the city rather than through mountains and forests they are known to inhabit. Just my opinion. Again, once a large predator like that develops a taste for human flesh, there's no way to rehabilitate it. It had to be destroyed. That's why I said I would shoot a predator that got one of my chickens. If I relocated it, it would just become someone else's problem, only now it would be trap-wise as well.
